Kind Eddy
by Eiri Wise
Summary: Kirsten and Cameron have their first date-night following the birth of their son, Eddy, so Linus volunteers himself and Camille to babysit. Brief Camsten, predominately Camus.
**Title:** Kind Eddy
 **Pairing:** Camus (Camille/Linus)  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Author:** Eiri  
 **Summary:** Kirsten and Cameron have their first date-night after the birth of their son, and Linus volunteers himself and Camille to babysit.

* * *

"I can't believe you signed us up for this," Camille sighed, securing her ponytail with an elastic and turning to glare at her boyfriend of three years. She threw her arms out from her sides, "Linus, we know _nothing_ about babies."

From where he stood by the door, Linus raised an eyebrow at her, "Speak for yourself. We used to visit family in Bengaluru every summer and I had six younger cousins that I had to babysit while the adults were out." He held out his left hand to show her a thin white line on his middle finger, "Jyotsana was a biter."

Camille appraised the wound, then shook her head, "Okay, so what do you need me for? After six cannibalistic cousins, you should be able to take care of one tiny baby by yourself, right?"

He smiled and reached out, grabbing her hand and pulling her to him so he could wrap his arms around her waist. He turned his head so he could plant a light kiss on the side of her neck. "I don't need help, necessarily," he said lowly, satisfied when he felt a small tremor run through her body. "I just want to be with you."

She draped her arms over his neck and pulled back just far enough to kiss him soundly on the mouth, not once, but numerous times in quick succession. "All right," she whispered against his lips after a few minutes passed, "let's do this." She reached down to take his hand in hers, then let him lead her out the front door of the smart apartment they now resided in together.

* * *

Cameron came up behind Kirsten and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder and staring down into the crib where their three-month-old son slept. He knew she was nervous about leaving him alone – he was, too – but he also knew she'd barely left the house since the baby was born and needed to get used to going out again. "You're not a bad mother for taking a night off to have fun," he murmured in her ear as he began to slowly sway her back and forth. She rested her arms on his and allowed herself to be rocked gently from side to side – the way she rocked Eddy when he cried at night – and leaned her head back so it rested against his shoulder.

"I haven't been away from him since the day he was born," she whispered, trying not to cry. She'd already put on her makeup and if it ran, she didn't think she'd have the energy to reapply it.

"Just think of it as practice," Cameron tried to reason. "Maternity leave will be up soon and we'll have to leave him with a nanny during the day. It wasn't easy for me to go back last month, either, but we both decided we still need to work, right? To help people?" She nodded reluctantly. "So we'll do one or two of these date nights a week, and you'll get used to the idea of trusting someone else with Eddy, and everything will be fine, okay?" He kissed a trail from her ear to her shoulder while his fingers trailed over her left hand until they found the engagement ring on her finger. God, he loved his life. Beautiful son, beautiful fiancée, great friends, good job, and best of all there was nothing threatening it anymore. Kirsten was no longer a target, which meant their son would grow up healthy and happy and safe.

He relayed his appreciations to her between kisses as he held her ever closer to him so he could hear every happy murmur and moan that crept from her throat, until a light knock came from the front door and disentangled themselves to answer it. "Where is my godson?" Linus asked by way of greeting when the door swung open.

"Fisher is his godfather," Kirsten said, stepping aside to allow him and Camille to enter. Behind her Cameron laughed – she may have gotten back in touch with her emotions a few years before, but there were still moments when all tact and sensitivity evaded her. When Linus's face fell, she quickly realized she'd tripped up and corrected herself, "But you're definitely his favorite uncle!"

Certain he wasn't going to get any better than this from Kirsten, Linus smiled appreciatively and leaned in to hug her. "You look beautiful, Kirsten," he told her, "I'm glad you're finally letting us babysit."

Kirsten gave him a tight-lipped grin and then moved on to Camille, who looked at nervous as she felt. It didn't exactly incite confidence in her. "Are you okay with this?" She asked as they embraced, though it didn't last as long as it had with Linus; the women had never been as touchy-feely as the men.

Camille shrugged and looked away, "Linus has a lot of experience with kids. I'm really just here as a…casual observer."

"Casual observer," Kirsten repeated dryly. "Please don't observe my son casually. Close eye, Camille – _close eye_."

"O-kay," Cameron interjected quickly, seeing how this could escalate from separation anxiety to anxiety attack. "We're going to go say goodbye to Eddy, you guys make yourselves comfortable. You know our numbers and where we'll be if anything happens – don't hesitate to call or text for even the smallest question. Eddy's been down for about an hour so he'll probably be up and hungry soon."

"I pumped this morning," Kirsten called over her shoulder as Cameron shuffled her toward the nursery, "so there's plenty of bottles in the refrigerator. Heat only until it's _lukewarm_." She had to stop talking then, as they entered the baby's room, so as not to wake him. She and Cameron walked up to the side of the crib they'd just left, and took turns running their fingers over the shock of soft, dark hair, the tiny fingers, the rosy cheeks. Then they each leaned over the gate to kiss him goodbye – Kirsten with tears in her eyes – and turned to head out.

"We can come home early, if anything happens or you just don't want to babysit anymore," Kirsten said as Cameron helped her into her jacket. "It's not a problem; all you have to do is call."

"We will," Camille said, a little too quickly, nerves evident in her voice. "If we have to, I mean. Not if we don't. No biggie. It's going to be great."

"Smooth," Linus rolled his eyes.

With one final look over her shoulder, Kirsten allowed herself to be whisked out the front door and into Cameron's car. Two minutes later she was digging through his glovebox for napkins to wipe away the makeup her tears had smeared beneath her eyes.

* * *

"Aah-hah-ah," Camille made a strangled, panic noise as Linus leaned down to lift the baby from the crib. "Why is he making that noise? Linus, why is he making that noise?"

Linus looked over his shoulder at her, brow furrowed, "He's crying; it's a thing babies tend to do."

"Okay, but _why_ is he crying?" She asked, pacing back and forth in the doorway. "I mean, is he sick, is he dying, did he just find out that he's getting audited – what are you doing?!" She demanded when her boyfriend raised the baby up so he could take a little sniff of his diaper.

"Making sure he doesn't need changed." Satisfied that the baby was dry, Linus cradled him in one arm and took a step toward Camille, "He's probably just hungry. Do you want to hold him while I get his bottle ready?"

Camille had held Eddy many times since he'd been born because, while Linus was not the godfather, she _was_ the godmother. She'd held him, rocked him, pretended to eat his little toesies, even burped him in these first three months of his life, but that was always with either Kirsten or Cameron right behind her, ready to swoop in if she screwed something up. Now it was just her and Linus, and though he said he had experience and she hadn't seen him drop Eddy yet, something about it felt like using the stove for the first time without Mom and Dad in the kitchen. "I, um," she sputtered, shaking her head. "No, I—can I get the bottle ready? I'd, uh, like to learn how."

Linus shrugged, "Sure," and followed her to the kitchen. A little over a year before, there had been a big game of musical houses, during which Camille moved in with Linus and Cameron moved in with Kirsten, and then Kirsten and Cameron had moved into a bigger house when they found out they were going to have a baby, and Linus sometimes still found himself having trouble navigating the new two-story craftsman. He accidentally turned left instead of right on his way to the kitchen, and quickly corrected himself before Camille noticed, bouncing the wailing baby all the while.

"Okay," Camille pulled the refrigerator door open and picked up one of the capped green bottles, "what do I do?"

"Do you see that thing that looks like a cross between an ice cream maker and a centrifuge?" He asked, not really paying attention as he made faces down at the baby in an attempt to make him stop crying. It didn't work.

Camille located the device on the kitchen counter and nodded, "Yeah, what is this thing?"

"Bottle warmer. Put the bottle in the basket in there. That's aaaa," he dragged out the word as he looked up to appraise the size of the bottle, "wide-mouth bottle, so on the back see how much water it needs for a wide-mouth and add it." Squinting at the small print on the back of the machine and using the little Pyrex measuring cup on the counter, Camille added the correct ounces of tap water and looked to Linus for further instruction. "Push the button," he said simply. "The light will turn green when it's done; should only take a couple of minutes."

Her eyes went wide as she looked between him and the screaming child. "What are we supposed to do for a couple of minutes? He could shriek himself to death in a couple of minutes!"

"You know they can smell fear, right?" Linus laughed, but his girlfriend glared back at him, unamused. He sighed and continued to bounce Eddy in his arms, "Camille, this is how babies are; you just have to get used to it."

"No, I don't," she shook her head. "You just do the babying and I'll do the sitting from now on. And when Kirsten comes back from leave, she'll have a nanny and we won't have to do this at all."

"Maybe, but," Linus chuckled, "what about when we have kids? This is good practice."

Camille almost dropped the measuring cup, which she'd been haphazardly tossing back and forth between her hands. "Wha-what _about_ when we have kids?" She said with a breathless, incredulous laugh. "That's not exactly something we've discussed, Linus."

He gave her an infuriatingly smug look, then nodded to the bottle warmer. "Light's green." She numbly took it from the warmer and handed it to him, watching dazed as he tested it against his wrist before putting it to Eddy's little lips. The baby kept mumbling little sobs and whines between suckles for a few moments before finally going silent and taking in the bottle, tiny fingers groping at his face as he drank. "There you go, buddy," Linus said, barely above a whisper, "that's the stuff, huh?" Without another word, he turned and headed for the living room, sitting down on the couch and arranging Eddy so he was laying lengthwise in Linus's lap, head at his knees, still enjoying his bottle.

Camille followed slowly with the same stunned look on her face. "Linus, what did you mean?"

He smiled, nonplussed, and shook his head. "Table it for later – forget I said anything. Come here," with his free hand he patted the cushion next to him, and she hesitantly obeyed. "Arms," he said, and then without warning took Eddy's bottle out of his mouth, picked him up, plopped him in Camille's arm, and replaced the bottle before either the woman or the baby had time to register what was happening.

She immediately froze. "Linus, I've never fed him before."

"It's easy," Linus assured, nudging her so she would take over holding the bottle for him, "he does all the work." Biting her bottom lip, Camille took the bottle from Linus, attempting to hold it at exactly the same angle he had. After a moment of adjusting, she started to notice a pulling feeling, very slight, and quickly realized it was Eddy's tiny mouth, pulling milk from the bottle with a powerful suction that came to babies by pure instinct. For some reason, it made her chest flutter. She'd been around mechanics and computers and technology for a large portion of her life, had seen what things could be programmed to do, but seeing it on a biological scale was…humbling, somehow.

Then came the crying again. With barely an ounce left in the bottle, Eddy twisted his head away and started screaming and squirming in Camille's arms, his tiny little toothless gums exposed and dark blue eyes squeezing shut. "Linus, he's crying again!" She panicked, "Take him. Takehimtakehimtakehim."

"You're fine," Linus promised, picking up a strip of terrycloth from the coffee table and draping it over her shoulder. "He just needs to be burped; you can do that."

"What? Ew. No," she shook her head, "last time I did that, I did it wrong, and he ruined my favorite peasant blouse."

"No, that's basically how it's supposed to go, babe," he laughed, reaching over to take the bottle.

She glared at him, "And anyway, you said you didn't even need my help – you were going to do all the work and I was just going to be a snarky piece of grown-up eye-candy in the corner!" He chose to ignore this, instead helping her situate Eddy over her shoulder and directing her on how hard and how quickly to pat him on the back. She cringed at the incessant shrieking right in her ear, and the way she could hear the gas rising in the baby's esophagus, and then there was a soft belch and she felt warmth on her shoulder. Linus quickly bundled up the rag and used the edges to wipe Eddy's mouth, then put it back down on the counter.

"And you," he said, examining Camille and leaving feather-light touches against her shoulder that would have made her tremble had she not been holding an infant, "are clean."

"Thank god," she breathed, both because she'd walked away unscathed, and Eddy had stopped crying. Now he was making funny gurgling, chirping noises as she eased him back down to lay in her arms. "What's he doing now?"

"He's cooing," Linus said, scooting closer so he could look down at Eddy. "Happy baby noises, as my mom says.

Camille shifted so she was holding him in a more comfortable position. "So what do we do with him now? Put him back to sleep? Play with him? Serve him a cocktail?"

"He just woke up, so let's play for a while."

"Okay…" She trailed off, thinking, then looked down at the baby. "Whaddaya say, Eddy? Rummy or canasta?"

Linus rolled his eyes and reached to take the baby from her, laying him back down in his lap and taking hold of both of his sock-covered feet. "Ready, little man?" Then he started working his legs up and down at fast-pace like Eddy was running in the air, "Run-run-run-run-run!" The baby stared up at him in wonder, and Linus did it again. "Run-run-run-run-run!" Now there was a gaping smile on Eddy's face that reminded Camille of a cuter version of a large-mouthed bass. "Run-run-RUN!" Now Eddy was laughing, fist stuffed in his mouth and squealing happily around it.

"He laughed!" Camille said, astounded. "I've never heard him laugh before!"

Linus smiled at her, "It's probably a pretty new thing. They usually start laughing around three or four months."

Now it was Camille's turn to lean over him, waggling her index finger at the giggling baby. "That's the most amazing sound I've ever heard. Keep," she waved an aimless hand at him as she worked her cell phone out of her pocket, " _jogging_ him; I'm going to record his laugh, just in case Kirsten and Cameron haven't heard it yet."

Linus did as he was told. "You should send it to Kirsten right after you're done; I'm sure she'd love a baby update." In the hour between when the couple had left and Eddy had woken up, Kirsten had called twice and texted upward of fourteen times, even though there was nothing more to tell her than "he's still asleep." Camille agreed and, after capturing an uninterrupted seventeen seconds of laughter, she attached the file to a text message and went back to watching Linus's baby games.

After jogging was something called Going To The Faire, which involved Linus moving his feet in different types of steps and sing-songing about different type of people going to the faire. Then there was Stork Kiss, during which he made the kissing sign with his hand and popped little hand-kisses all over Eddy's cheeks, neck, and belly. There was Peek-A-Boo and blowing raspberries, and gestures taking the form of various different types of transportation. Camille found herself getting caught up in it in a way she never could have imagined she would. Most days, even the most rigorous game of chess or the highest stakes game of poker couldn't keep her attention, but something about waggling finger-spider moustaches at a three-month-old had her captivated.

It couldn't last, though. Forty-five minutes passed before Eddy suddenly started squirming and whimpering again, which quickly turned to a full-on screamfest. After some carefully placed pats, Linus said, "Time for you to learn how to change a dirty diaper." Camille instantly recoiled and he sighed, scooping the baby up and reaching for her with his free hand, "It's not that bad." Reluctantly, she took his hand and followed him back to the nursery, where he gently laid Eddy down on the changing table and unbuttoned his onesie.

From there, Linus directed Camille in undoing the dirty diaper and cleaning the baby thoroughly with wipes, adding talcum so he wouldn't chafe, and then securing a new diaper around his belly. Her hands shook the entire time – mostly because she kept having a vision of Eddy rolling off the edge of the table – but to her credit she only gagged twice at the smell and sensation of milk-fed baby-waste. But Eddy continued to cry after his changing, this time with gusto, waving his fists and writhing in Camille's arms. "Take him, take him," she begged for the second time that night, trying desperately to hand the infant to her boyfriend. "Dude, I can _not_ handle this; you're the baby expert!" Linus's face twitched, and she could tell he was trying to keep from laughing. "Linu-uh-huh-huuss," she whined.

"He's tired," he told her with a pitying smile. "Just bounce him a bit; you know how to do that."

"Can't you just—"

"How can you ever be a good godmother," Linus cut her off, "if you can't even make your godson stop crying? Come on, now," he said gently, "bounce up and down while you turn from side to side."

She started to do as he said, but it barely made a dent in Eddy's sobbing. "How long does it take?"

"Depends on how stubborn he's feeling." Five minutes passed and nothing changed except Eddy was now swiping at his face and leaving light pink finger impressions. "I'm going to find his pacifier," Linus said, and before Camille could stop him he was out of the room, leaving her completely alone for the first time with the baby.

"Oh god," she whispered to herself, looking up at the ceiling as if willing Nanny McPhee to suddenly phase through it and solve this problem. "Come on, Eddy. Little Ed-oh. Edward Quincy Goodkin. I will literally call you whatever you want if you'll stop crying, bro." He didn't take the deal, and Linus seemed to be taking forever to find that stupid pacifier. "Oh god, what do I do? What do I do?" She paced the floor, bouncing all the while, when an idea came to her; something her parents had never done for her, but she'd seen countless TV couples do. She took a deep breath, looked down at Eddy's contorted face, and let it out.

" _If the sun refused to shine_ ," she sang softly, sweetly, trying her best to keep the waver of panic and desperation from her voice, " _I would still be loving you. When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me_. _Kind Eddy_ ," she smiled as she inserted his name into the lyrics, " _I give you my all – kind Eddy, nothing more_." There was a falter in his crying and she get out a breathless laugh of victory, even though he started crying again a moment later; it might actually be working. She let her voice get a little louder, a little stronger, and little more soulful.

" _Little drops of rain whisper of the pain – tears of loves lost in the days gone by. My love is strong – with you, there is no wrong; together we shall go until we die. My, my, my_." There were tears in her eyes now as she looked down at Eddy, whose sobs were lessening and he was staring up at her in wonder. One of his spindly-fingered hands reached up toward her face and she caught it with her own, letting those fingers curl around her thumb. " _An inspiration is what you are to me. Inspiration – look, see. And so today, my world, it smiles. Your hand in mine, we walk the miles_ …" She barely noticed when two strong arms wrapped around her from behind, peppering her shoulder with kisses. She was too focused on the baby sleepily gumming her finger, his thin eyelids growing heavier and heavier. She continued to hum the rest of the song until she was certain Eddy was asleep in her arms, and she carefully removed her finger from his grasp and lowered him into his crib. She covered him with his blanket and stared at him for a long moment, then kissed her fingertips and touched them to his cheek.

"See?" Linus whispered, lips against her earlobe. "Babysitting's not so bad, huh?"

"How do they do that?" She wondered aloud. "How do they cry and scream and make you so nervous and frustrated and terrified, and then erase it all by just…holding your hand?"

She felt more than heard him laugh against her, chest vibrating against her back. "Because they are the most pure, amazing things in the world, I guess?"

She smiled, "Sounds about right. Man, you're really on a roll today." She turned out of his embrace and started for the door, giving him a pat on the shoulder as she went.

He followed her, brow raised. "Oh yeah? What else was I right about?"

Camille gave him a quick smirk over her shoulder, "This _was_ good practice."


End file.
